John 1:6

In introducing John the Baptist the writer stressed that God had sent him. The name "John" means "God is gracious." John was a prophet in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets who bore witness to the light (Exodus 3:10-15; Isaiah 6:8; Jeremiah 1:4; cf. John 3:17). He was a man, in contrast to the Word, who was God. The other Gospel writers described John with the words "the Baptist," but John the Evangelist did not. He probably called him simply John because this is the only John that the Apostle John mentioned by name in his Gospel. [Note: See Cornelis Bennema, "The Character of John in the Fourth Gospel," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52:2 (June 2009):271-84.] He always referred to himself obliquely either as the disciple whom Jesus loved or as the other disciple or in some other veiled way.